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01. MP3: Death Domain – A Pox on You from split tape with High Marks (2008)
02. MP3: Death Domain – Ethidium Bromide 2

There’s a lot of good going on in Baltimore tonight, particularly in Station North with the release parties for Height With Friends’ Baltimore Highlands Remix Album at the Windup, and Jason Urick’s Thrill Jockey debut Husbands at the Hexagon.  But for something a little more under the radar and farther towards the extreme end of the spectrum, you should look westward to AMERICA.

Now, I’m going to say at the start, there’s a little authorial bias here.

Death Domain aka Adam Stroupe is a science nerd and, like me, wears it as a badge of honor.  The name of his apocalypse-heralding solo project says as much (death domains are stretches of amino acids found in proteins that signal for apoptosis, programmed cell death).  And let’s not get started on the bevy of overt scientific references saturating his songs’ titles (“A Pox On You,” “Vampyroteuthis infernalis,” “Toxoplasma gondii“) and lyrics.

To my ears, his sound is perhaps the most deserving of the ultra-vague, tongue-in-cheek designation of future shock.  If you take novelist Alvin Toffler’s definition, “future shock” is merely a twist on “culture shock,” essentially defined as the disorientation arising from the speed of change.  And DD’s music is undoubtedly one of the most bewildering, disorienting yet magnetic and infectious slices of downright bleak takes on synth-based dance music.  So welcome this wayward son home from tour tonight when he stops off at AMERICA with tourmates Cult of Youth and a host of others from the House of Tinnitus venue/collective in Denton, TX.

Crucial details:

AMERICA, doors @ 8pm
122 S Stockton St (a side street, between Lombard and Pratt, in the perpendicular, and between Carey and Carrollton, in the parallel)

CULT OF YOUTH – Neofolk in the tradition of Death in June.  These guys and gal barely play outside NY.  Snagged them after the last date of their tour!

DEATH DOMAIN – Criminally overlooked local synth-based non-organic onslaught.  Cold, catchy and clinical.  Lamentations of the future-present.

LYCHGATE – Grim harsh noise from Denton, TX.  Power electronics without the courtesy of misanthropicscreamers.

ASHES – On tour with Lychgate; also from TX.  Like-minded harshness.  Think FFH, Grey Wolves, Ahlzagailzehguh.  Ashen colored nihilism.

CORPORATE PARK – Part of the TX noise package.  Self-proclaimed back stabbers.  Think Pedestrian Deposit, Burmese, Throbbing Gristle and where the best place to find a leather zentai suit would be.

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01. MP3: Indian Jewelry – Temporary Famine Ship from Free Gold! (2008)
02. MP3: Indian Jewelry – Swans from Free Gold! (2008)
03. MP3: Indian Jewelry – Lapis Lazuli from untitled 2010 release (World Premiere!)

Indian Jewelry are students of drone and psychedelia.  Formed by Erika Thrasher and Tex Kerschen in 2002, the logistics of this ever-evolving collective are baffling, seeming to expand and contract as frequently as the air we breathe.  With a rotating cast of members that is kinda like a revolving door, it’s a wonder they ever get anything done.  They have remarkably churned out two full-lengths (2006′s Invasive Exotics and 2008′s Free Gold!) along with refining a noted live spectacle.  Happily, they have a third album on the way and we are premiering the track “Lapis Lazuli” above.

The result is one of the catchier distillations of mind-warping visions you are likely to see. Uniquely, they manage to wrangle a balance of psych and drone that is rarely seen; more often than not, you encounter one predominating and the other playing the role of hook or kitsch.  IJ are relentlessly toeing lines: they teeter on the precipice of shoegaze with the clashing of distorted guitars, deploy drones that take them to the pearly gates of noise, paint often enough in textures to recall post-rock.  All done while keeping aligned with the fundamental vision of psych: providing a musical framework for melding and moulding of consciousness.

“Temporary Famine Ship” displays these qualities perfectly, a simple psych guitar riff twirls amidst a cacophonic din of reverberating vocals and droning synths that might be considered neon if not so sinister, driven by a stomping set of tribalist drum beats; a paradox that is catchy and unsettling at the same time.  ”Swans” feels appropriately ascendant in its guitar melody, leading to a gradual and righteous coalescence of the various droning components that feels not unlike basking in the sun after a sojourn through the dark woods.  Slow-burning grower “Pentecostal” has a pipe-organ-like drone that recalls a sermon or ritual of titular origin, primitive power, and low-range vocals that could easily be mistaken for tongues.  The excellently titled “Lapis Lazuli” shimmers with textures of guitars and synths in perhaps their most polished track to date; the track also brings them even closer to the sounds of post-rock, the proceedings having an ominous cloud above them.

With a sonic palette such as this, they’re well paired to open for Celebration along with Videohippos (premiering as a quartet featuring Jared Paolini and Adventure aka Benny Boeldt) at the LOF/T this Thursday Oct 15th, as part of the “Earth” installment of Celebration’s Baltimore Elemental series.

Check out the music video for “Lapis Lazuli” after the jump.

Read the rest…

So we’ve got a show coming up with So Percussion on Oct 28th. Here’s a sneak peek. The So guys were down teaching at Peabody in late September and took some time to shoot a performance of Steve Reich’s Drumming Part 1 in a Percussion studio with us and Polygon Tree, curator behind the web-show An Hour of Kindness.  Enjoy and be amazed.

I also took some photos of the shoot:

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01. MP3: Dark Party – Status from Light Years (2009)
02. MP3: Mux Mool – Nausican from Just Saying Is All (2008)

I’ll be up in Boston this weekend to catch Built to Spill’s run at the Middle East.

But I’m regretting it as there are some stellar shows happening.  Wye Oak is opening for Blitzen Trapper at a mammoth Saturday Ottobar event.  Following the show, everyone’s favorite DJ Jason Willett will be hosting the after-party at the Golden West.

Tonight though, all eyes should be on the Hexagon who hosts a phenomenal Moodgadget-anchored orgy of dance music, courtesy of local label Environmental Aesthetics.

Out of towners Dark Party and Mux Mool bring electronic dance bliss (lush with hip-hop beats and influence) to the Hexagon, while opener Cex blasts you with his particularly visceral brand of electronic and beats-master Mickey Free lays down some rhymes.   This is easily a can’t miss show.

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MP3: Sick Sick Birds – Your Machine from Heavy Manners 12″ (2009)

On a particularly idyllic and cool fall evening this week, I sat on the steps of Charm City Art Space with founding member Mike Riley (the Spark, Pulling Teeth, Toxic Pop & Firestarter Records) to reminisce and reflect on the past, present and future of the iconic, long-running DIY venue.

They celebrate a mind-boggling 1000 shows this Friday with a secret, 5-band line-up.  It should not be missed.

Doors at 7PM. All ages and donations appreciated, as always.

Aural States: To start, can you flesh out the circumstances leading up to the genesis of CCAS?  What factors contributed to you and the other founders’ desire to start up the space?

Mike Riley: Well since I moved to Baltimore in ’94, I went to UMBC.  I grew up in central New Jersey and there were shows left and right, bands I wanted to go see all the time.  When I came down here I didn’t have a car.  This was obviously not pre-internet, but pre the explosion of the internet.  My AOL search for Baltimore hardcore was this band called Compression, who are far from a hardcore band.

There were hardcore bands in Baltimore, just bands weren’t on the internet yet.  So I was lost as to where the shows were happening in the area, I couldn’t find any info on the Loft, or anything in the area.  So I decided I’d bring the bands in myself.  I started doing shows at UMBC in ’97.  Did them there for a while.  Then a friend told me about a space near University of Maryland, which was at the time the Supreme Imperial.  I got involved with them, they let us rent out the space.  Eventually when they got evicted we took it over.  That became the Chop Shop.  At that time, I met my friend Mike Wolf who had just moved to the area from Pittsburgh.  Well, not just, he had been here a little while.  He was involved in a space in Sowebo called Black Aggies, which was also the Laff n Spit.  So we just became friends, kept in touch over the years.

Fast forward to 2002, and neither of us have regular show spaces to work with.  DIY spaces.  I was doing a lot of shows at the old Ottobar and the Sidebar.  But we just wanted a non-bar venue where music was the focus.  Mike and I met up at a show at the Bloodshed, a warehouse space on Preston.  They had just moved in there, it was a cool, great space but I guess since people were living there, they didn’t want to do more than one show a month.  Mike and I were talking that night and we decided we really needed to get a space together, that’s smaller and can help out smaller touring bands.  So Mike found this place for rent in the City Paper Classifieds.  We came and checked it out, and downstairs it was all walled off into little, separate rooms.  Upstairs was a wig shop that had just closed down.

We thought, this’ll work.  It was cheap.  We tore down all the walls and that was our basement space.  To come up with first month’s rent we got in touch with everyone in the Baltimore and DC area that we knew who might be interested in a space like this: “We’re trying to raise money for security deposit, rent.  Help us out.”

We got over $1000 in donations, anywhere from $20 to $150.  And it’s never had to come out of pocket since. Read the rest…

Download the entire album: MP3 or FLAC

Stream and download individual tracks:

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1. Baltimore Highlands – Drew Swinburne
2. Mike Stone – Gavin Riley
3. Jackson Whites – Mrs. Paintbrush
4. The World – PT Burnem
5. Escape Tune – Lesser Gonzalez
6. Baltimore Highlands – Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow
7. The Woods – King Rhythm
8. Code Of Love – San Serac
9. Twelve Strings – Jones
10. Standing Up Asleep – Authentic
11. Woods Reprise – Drew Swinburne
12. Travel Rap – C.Y.O. (http://www.lowdworld.blogspot.com/)
13. Cold And Shaken – AK of AK Slaughter

Don’t miss the official album release party at the Windup Space on Fri Oct 16th featuring Lizz King, AK Slaughter, and Lesser Gonzalez!

Aural States: What motivated you to do a full remix of the Baltimore Highlands album?  You were releasing remixes sporadically for download on the Wham City label site.  What made you want to undertake this project too?

Read the rest…

For Immediate Release: All artists are open to press inquiries, interviews and more.  For more information regarding any of the artists or this show, please contact Greg Szeto at auralstates@gmail.com.

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01. MP3: So Percussion – Drumming, Pt. 4 (Steve Reich)
02. MP3: So Percussion – June
03. MP3: Microkingdom’s Pro Hour – Double Abacus from Wrenches:My Heart/Double Abacus (2008)
04. MP3: Gestures – Doritos from Nice EP (2009)

Aural States presents So Percussion, Microkingdom, Gestures, more TBA at the Metro Gallery on Wed Oct 28th

(BALTIMORE, MD — Sept 14 2009) — Defining the boundaries of what we know as music and classifying its endless offspring are both ever-evolving, vital enterprises.  In celebration of this constant growth, Aural States has brought together musicians who we feel excel at making music a malleable and dynamic entity through bold experimentation.  We are proud to present So Percussion, Microkingdom, and Gestures at the Metro Gallery on October 28^th 2009 in the Station North Arts District of Baltimore.

Brooklyn-based quartet So Percussion take up the cause of showing the world that percussion is much more than a primitive means to an end, expanding far beyond drums laying down beats.  Lauded as “revelatory” (David Lang), “brilliant” and “consistently impressive” (The New York Times), and “astonishing and entrancing” (Billboard Magazine), their genre-bending work has lead to collaborations with innovative musicians like Dan Deacon and Matmos, with whom years of work will bear fruit in a late Spring 2010 release on Cantaloupe Records.  They’ve prepared bracing performances of pieces from visionary composers such as David Lang, Steve Reich, John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, as well as crafting their own compositions.  Their music has taken them around the globe to stages and audiences of all shapes and sizes, from the Lincoln Center Festival to Carnege Hall, the Kennedy Center, and even Whartscape 2009 at the Baltimore Museum of Art where they performed excerpts from Steve Reich’s Drumming.  This summer, So created an annual summer institute at Princeton University consisting of an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for college percussionists.

In their only Baltimore/DC area performance, in an unusually intimate venue, So will perform works from Steve Reich, their 2006 album Amid the Noise, and their latest original work entitled Imaginary City, which has its world premiere just a few weeks before as a commission for the 2009 BAM Next Wave Festival.

http://www.sopercussion.com/ || http://www.myspace.com/sopercussion || http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1259

The trio known as Microkingdom’s Pro Hour is one of Baltimore’s avant-garde powerhouses.  Its members hold pedigree second to none: guitarist Marc Miller of math rock pranksters Oxes, percussion whiz and composer Will Redman, and the musically polyamorous John Dierker’s fierce reeds.  Playing “sinuous, powerfully dynamic improvisations” (The Wire) or self-described “No Jazz,” Microkingdom have been called “dynamic, challenging, confident” (Pitchfork).  Over the past couple of years Microkingdom has played shows with: Wzt Heart, Ecstatic Sunshine, Thank You, Singer, Food For Animals, Daniel Higgs, These Are Powers, Jack Wright, White Mice, Talibam!, Peter Brotzmann, Pontiak, Extra Life, The Homosexuals, and many others. They’ve also self released color vinyl Wrenches: My Heart/Double Abacus as well as putting out the CD-R EP Spectacular Edges on Human Conduct.  This fall will see them playing Brooklyn-based Death By Audio’s You Are Here: The Maze installation and performance festival in late September.

http://www.microkingdom.com/ || http://myspace.com/microkingdom || http://www.willredman.com/

Gestures’ “shambolic drums-n-brass band” was named D.C.’s “Second-Best Use of Air Pressure” by Washington City Paper’s Best of D.C. 2009.  A horn and drum collective consisting of tuba, trombone, saxophone, clarinet, and two drum kits, think manic marching band meets frantic free-jazz structures and you’ve got a pretty close approximation of their sound.  Fascinating and brazen blasts of dissonance test and probe the limits of your endurance while simultaneously forming vivid mental images and narratives like some crazed sonic bard, drunkenly dragging off-kilter harmonies out of entropy.  Gestures’ debut EP Nice will be out soon.

http://www.initiatedeyerecordings.com/gestures || http://www.myspace.com/gesturesdc

Venue Information

The Metro Gallery, 1700 N Charles St, Baltimore MD 21201

http://themetrogallery.net/ || http://www.myspace.com/metrogallery

Tickets $10 in advance.  $12 day of show.  21 and over only.

This Saturday, psych afficionados of all creeds should converge onto the Metro Gallery for a fantastic double album release party featuring 2 acid-drenched locals: Sri Aurobindo and the Violet Hour.

Sri Aurobindo – Return Into Earth (Unsigned)

From the earliest creators of psychedelic music, the manipulation of consciousness has been the foremost inspiration in their songcraft.  The 13th Floor Elevators, on their landmark debut Psychedelic Sounds, describe their motivations simply yet profoundly: “It is this quest for pure sanity that forms the basis of the songs…”

With this epic-length instrumental release, Sri Aurobindo give their most convincing vehicle for fulfilling this journey, and come up with successes on a number of fronts.  Now, clocking in at over 32 minutes long, its length alone may have some people running the other direction.  And while I readily admit this is not something that I’m going to put into the CD player on a regular basis, I think this release has a special and unique place in any collection.

For any single track of this length, its primary concern is taking the listener on an engaging journey (presumably the “quest for pure sanity”).  As such, it’s clear that the Sris took meticulous care to carve out a picturesque sonic sojourn, from the wisps of ethereal, airy jazz flute to deep, warm earthy drones.  The primal shamanistic beats and melodies sweep you away in that classic, consciousness-expanding tradition of psychedelia.  Each of three large, crescendoing sections feels like a distinct, raw trip tapping into some immense wellspring of inspiration from the natural world.  Sections successively bring more visceral sounds and instrumentation (ie: heavier guitars, less haze), building upon the foundations of the last.  When the big, burned out electric guitars finally emerge 2/3 of the way through the track, you are more than ready for their stream-of-consciousness revelations, hopping from motif to motif and getting closer to the horizontalization of the hierarchy of thought espoused by the Elevators.

There are some really great moments on this release.  Sri Aurobindo have embraced more varied instrumentation, and display great maturity in songwriting by channeling all manner of spiritual and elemental forces in pursuit of that holy grail of psychedelia: “pure sanity.”  Since they cannot walk the journey, only show you the way, how close they get to achieving this is largely determined by you.

The Violet Hour – The Violet Hour (Creative Capitalism)

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MP3: The Violet Hour – XXXVI

The Violet Hour’s (Andriana Pateris and Beth Varden) long-delayed debut CD is a strong musical manifesto: silky smooth vocal harmonies (weighty with mid-range) mixing with reverb-heavy, meditative guitar and measured drums into a hypnotizing brew.  ”Peripheral Vision” is as smokily moody as its lyrics sung on “two hearts on fire.”  ”Southern Cross” is remarkable for the twinkling luster of its arpeggiated opening (a likely homage to its astronomical namesake) and a stark contrast amidst a sea of more worn and foggy sounds.  The track’s lyrics intwertwine themes both spiritual and celestial.

The strongest track to my mind is the closer (“XXXVI”) which picks up the pace along with a few earlier tracks, but ultimately their net effect is a sort of bas relief to the rest of the album, rather than a lasting, lifting one.  As a result, I think the record suffers under the unyielding weight of downcast moods, mostly downtempo pacing and similar keys, while simultaneously gaining a beautiful sense of consistency and cohesion.  The soaring vocal harmonies and the distinct mood created are the most compelling aspects of this album, and point to very bright things in the future.  I can’t think of a better pairing of sounds for Saturday’s show.

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01. MP3: Richard Lainhart – Thonk from Buchlaworks
02. MP3: The Megadrives – Snow Rising Tai Chi from Press Start
03. MP3: Jerohme Spye – Yellow Sun from sunday one play

Last year, you may remember the Baltimore SDIY group hosted a festival housed at the Hexagon featuring the likes of noteNdo and a host of other chiptuners.  Looks like this year they’ve got an expanded event at larger space and with a wider variety of performers, presenting the Electronica Fest 2009 at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum.

The festival is a veritable who’s who of local instrument makers and tinkerers including Art Harrison (who you may recognize from DC’s vaudeville-punks the Cassettes), Karl Ekdahl (founding member of the Hexagon, operator of the True Vine Repair Shop) and Peter Blasser (whose fantastic RadioZither we demonstrated a while back).

Harrison’s company manufactures the early electronic instrument known as the theremin.  Some may affectionately recognize its eerie, wavering sound as the source of a sizable portion of observatory exhibit music and science fiction soundtracks.  Its reach extends as far as home-country hero Dmitri Shostakovich’s compositions to popular music to the avant-garde.

It is the only musical instrument played without physical contact, instead operating by principles of electric fields, where the player’s hands act as capacitance plates.  As the hands move closer to the antennas, the capacitance increases and the frequency is lowered, leading to a higher pitch when  subtracting the frequency of the hand-dependent oscillator from a fixed oscillator.  The other antenna controls volume, as a hand gets closer to it and decreases the voltage across the fixed oscillator circuit, decreasing the voltage across the amplifier.

Ekdahl recently finished work on the Ekdahl Moisturizer, an exposed spring reverberator.  Spring reverbs translate the vibrations of springs into reverb effects on the sound being passed through the springs.  Having exposed springs allows much easier manipulation of their sound, making it easier to achieve the crashing, thunderous effects that are typically made by shaking enclosed spring reverbs.  The Moisturizer also allows you to create sounds independent of a sound source.

Head on out to the fest and check out all of the cool exhibits and presentations, maybe even learn how to make your own theremin!  Don’t forget to get some fresh air and poke your head outside by the outdoor stage where performers include The Megadrives, The Duc D’Anelos Quartet, Jerohme Spye, Art Harrison and Amber Dunleavey, Tone Ghosting, and Richard Lainhart.

Jammin' in the Streets

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01. MP3: Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk w/ Skerik – I Cannot Make It (Sly Stone), Live @ Tipitina’s in New Orleans (2009.05.30) via Internet Archive

02. MP3: Medeski, Martin & Wood – Flat Tires from Radiolarians II (2009)

This Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Sonar will be hosting a brand new late summer festival called Traffic Jam. That’s right, Herby Nuggz, it’s like I’m speaking directly to you through my computer.

For a brand new festival held at a single venue in the heart of a major metropolitan area, the lineup is stellar. Moreover, the setting should seem positively intimate compared to other ultra-mega summer festivals. There will be an outdoor stage — the weather report looks clear so bring sunblock rather than umbrellas — as well as two indoor stages.

Read the rest…